Building the MVP for car rental app

Remember that in the beginning your aim is to create a word of mouth for your platform, promote it, and gather a сlient base.

To do this, it’s not necessary to provide big functionality and variety of different features and packages your users may not need at all.

What you really need is to create a basic product within the short period of time, push it onto the market, gather the first feedbacks and check out its competitiveness.

Here is a step by step guide on how to create the Minimum Viable Product for your car rental app.

Evaluate your business idea

Take your time and think whether there is a demand for your product on the market. The niche is competitive and your really have to think how to bring value to your users.

To do this, conduct a competitor analysis first. Take into account the following factors:

Their market size

Geographical coverage (whether it`s international or local business)

Audience size

Monetization strategy

Main features of your competitors

After this think how your product will be different. Remember, that users are your starting point.

If you know their pain points and ways how your product can make their lives better - you become closer to success.

One of the main problems of startups is that they shoot in the dark. Entrepreneurs stuff the product with often unnecessary for the first time features without the knowledge if there is need for those.

“You cannot be sure you really understand any part of any business problem unless you go and see for yourself firsthand. It is unacceptable to take anything for granted or to rely on the reports of others.”

This is actually when MVP comes for help. It sheds some light on the market demand. It helps you to learn your users` feedbacks and change your product accordingly. The quote from the book mentioned above is spot on here.

“Build-Measure-Learn. The fundamental activity of a startup is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere. All successful startup processes should be geared to accelerate that feedback loop.”

Conduct a segment analysis

Segment analysis helps you to divide your clients into groups according to their needs, behavior, and even budget.

Then you have to choose what segments to serve. Only after this you can build a business model according to the specific needs of each segment.

Car type segment analysis

As we have already mentioned, the car rental market is crowded, so the only way to differentiate here is to specialize on a certain niche. By doing a car segment analysis you can choose a type of cars you platform will offer. The choice is wide enough: wedding and special events cars, photoshoot and movie car rentals, retro cars, muscle cars, sport cars, trucks, etc.

You can even specialize in only one type or model of car. Believe or not, but in such way you will attract a dedicated and targeted audience to your product.

For example, Silvercar app offers only one type of car - Audi A4, simplifying the often tedious process of choosing a car to rent.

Such differentiation will help you to stand out among your competitors and create the associations for your brand.

End-user segment analysis

While creating the MVP for car rental marketplace, it is enough to choose several services you will offer to your clients and check out what works more.

Here are some ideas

Transfer from the airport

Offer your users airport car rental right after they have landed in the town. Make the process of renting fast and intuitive with a lot of car rental options. The number of air travellers is rising, which will lead to the growth in this segment.

Why not to offer transportation services to different events? To start with, you can even provide the services for free to create a recognition for your brand.

Tours and local usage

This segment has the largest demand, as most travelers prefer to rent a car when coming to a new city and explore it on their own.

Create a user flow

Before creating the user flow for your car rental app, choose one goal your users have to complete.

Then think about the stages that will lead the user to this goal. In your case, the main goal is to book a car.

Let`s see what steps the user has to go through in order to get to the final point.

Compose the list of features

Now it`s time to list down all the features that are necessary for each step in the user flow.

User Profile

Registration/Authorization

Car booking

GPS tracking

Сalendar

In-app notifications

Email notifications

Payment system integration

Referral programs

Reviews

Renting other vehicle types

Pick-up from the airport

Blog

Corporate car sharing

In-app car unlock

Past and current reservations

Payment details

Admin Panel

Manage the users (Validate users)

Manage cars

Accept/Decline reservations

Send in-app notifications

Prioritize the features for your MVP

When you`ve done this, arrange these features according to their priority and define the first scope of work.

Note, this stage is the most important. You need to have a strict understanding of what you will do first and don't deviate from the route you`ve chosen.

Here are the basic features you need for the Minimum Viable Product.

User

Registration/Auth

Car booking

In-app notifications

E-mailing

Payment system integration

Past and current reservations

Payment details

Admin

Manage the users

Manage the cars

Accept/Decline reservations

Time and cost to create car rental app

According to our estimate, the average time needed to build the MVP for car rental platform is 1529 hours depending on the complexity of the functions.

Remember that the price depends on different factors as your service provider`s hourly rate and location. For example, in the US rates for app development start from $100-150 per hour, while in Eastern Europe, where our development offices are located, you can hire a senior developer for $40-$70 per hour.